63. Jeanne de Clisson and the Black Fleet

by Diana S. |
Painting of burning pirate ships

BOO! It’s spooky season, so I’m bringing you a chilling tale of piracy, treachery, and blood-soaked revenge. This week, we’re digging into the very beginning of the Hundred Years’ War, when a bunch of scheming men had their plans ruined by scheming women. We’ll learn about the War of Breton Succession, a.k.a. a teensy conflict that managed to explode into an international proxy war. Despite the strictures of medieval society, Breton women were claiming thrones, leading armies into battle, and taking to the high seas. Jeanne de Clisson, furious widow, turned her rage into a lifelong search for vengeance, and we are definitely going to dig into the gory details.

Episode 63: “Jeanne de Clisson and the Black Fleet”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | RSS

Jeanne de Clisson, lady pirate:

Medieval portrait of Jeanne de Clisson
Medieval portrait of Jeanne de Clisson

 

Medieval painting of the Battle of Auray
See the organizational splendor of the Hundred Years War.

Transcript

Bienvenue and welcome back to the Land of Desire. I’m your host, Diana, and I have to make a confession: I am a scared little baby. Whenever Halloween comes back around, I remember how much I hate scary movies, scary stories, and generally anything that causes anxiety in any way. My most sacred October ritual is watching Practical Magic while giving myself an autumnal manicure. If you’re the kind of person watching movies like The Exorcist, Get Out, or Night of the Living Dead, I salute you, I respect you, but I do not understand you! But this year, I’m going outside my comfort zone to bring you some genuinely spooky content, starring one of the wildest ladies in the French history books. I don’t know about you, but I could do with a little angry vengeance right now, a little hellraising. So today, change out of your day pajamas and into a black veil, light a pillar candle and sharpen your swords. Piracy is our only option.
 
 
In 1328, the French King Charles IV did a very inconsiderate thing: to the great inconvenience of everyone in Western Europe, he died without leaving a male heir. No sons, no brothers, not even any useful old uncles. It’s never a good idea for a king to die without a line of succession, but Charles really couldn’t have chosen a worse time. He’d spent his entire reign squabbling with his mortal enemies, the English, and now they’d be making a play for his throne. The fight for Charles’s crown would waste everyone’s time, money, and lives for the next five generations, with everyone picking sides, double-crossing one another, then picking the other side, and then double crossing one another again. The fight was so epic, so complicated, and ultimately so, so stupid that George R.R. Martin would use it as the inspiration for Game of Thrones. And just like Game of Thrones, it has a sad trombone sound of an ending. The Hundred Years’ War eventually became something like white noise: a constant clash going on in the background, all while Europe lurched its way through the Middle Ages, wrestling with big questions about God, death, and what it means to be human. One of the most important questions Europe tackled during this time had grave implications for the war itself: what to do about women? Can’t live with ‘em, can’t make heirs if you send ‘em all to a nunnery. Throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, rascally women kept scuppering the plans of powerful men. They were claiming thrones, leading armies into battle, sleeping with the enemy, dying in childbirth when men needed them to live, surviving the bubonic plague when men needed them to die, and in at least one extremely memorable occasion, taking to the high seas for a blood soaked reign of terror.  This week, join me for an extra-spooky examination of the life of the lady pirate, Jeanne de Clisson, the Lioness of Brittany.
 
In the year 1322, Charles IV inherited his older brother’s crown and his older brother’s nemesis. In the 14th century, the area we know as “France” was a motley assortment of territories, some of them more obedient to the crown than others. Ever since Guillaume, duc de Normandie, sailed across the Channel to conquer England in 1066, the kings of England had laid claim to various duchies and land holdings too close to Paris for comfort. For example, the beautiful, profitable duchy of Aquitaine used to belong to the French crown, until Eleanor of Aquitaine divorced the king of France and married the king of England. But the English kings were getting uppity. As the duke of Aquitaine, the King of England was supposed to bend the knee to the King of France, or so the King of France said, conveniently enough. In 1291, the English king, Edward I, stopped paying tribute to Charles’s father, Philip. Philip insisted on treating Edward like a duke, not a fellow king. If you can believe it, this caused offense. After a bunch of fighting, it was agreed: King Philip would allow Edward I to marry Philip’s sister, Margaret, in exchange for Edward returning the territory of Gascony to France for a little while, as a show of obedience. After a while, the king of France would return Gascony, and all would be well. But it was a trick! Edward handed Gascony over to Philip, and Philip refused to hand it back. As you can imagine, Edward I didn’t take it well, and England began sharpening her swords against the French. But Philip’s victory was short-lived: while he racked up victories against his overseas enemies, trouble was brewing back home.
 
On paper, at least, Philip’s dynasty appeared secure: he had three adult sons, and one adult daughter. As good noble boys and girls, they were all four expected to marry for political advantage, and they all four did so. All three sons married girls from the houses of Burgundy, a rich and prosperous duchy which Philip was determined to bring under French control. Meanwhile, Philip attempted to patch things up with England by marrying his daughter Isabella off to Edward I’s son. So far, so good. But in 1314, Philip’s house was rocked by scandal.
 
For poor Isabella, cast off across the English Channel, life was pretty miserable. Shunted off to the land of her enemies at the age of 12, Isabella found herself married to a young man who was definitely uninterested and probably homosexual. Whether she was bored or in the mood for a little family revenge, at the age of 19, Isabella decided to set her family’s reputation on fire. That year, Isabella, her husband, and her father-in-law, King Edward I, set sail for France. It was supposed to be a moment of reconciliation between the two rival countries, embodied by Isabella herself, the bridge between the families. As any good guests might, the English brought gifts. Isabella brought a number of beautiful embroidered purses, which she gave to her sisters-in-law, the lovely ladies of Burgundy. But later in the visit, Isabella noticed something curious: the purses which she had given to her sisters-in-law were now being carried around by a couple of handsome young knights. Isabella wasted no time informing her father, and before long, King Philip had his own daughters-in-law under surveillance. Eventually, to the astonishment of the nation, King Philip broke the news that at least two of his sons had been cuckholded – the heir to the throne, Louis, and the youngest son, Charles. Jury was still out on his other daughter-in-law, Joan. The two adulterous princesses were locked in the Tower of Nesle (NE-LLE). The handsome young knights were tortured and hanged. By the end of 1314, Philip himself was dead, possibly from embarrassment. The eldest son, Louis X, ascended to the throne, with his wife still locked in a castle. Before long, Louis’s wife died under mysterious circumstances – some say she was strangled, others say she was smothered by a mattress. Whatever the case, Louis didn’t celebrate his freedom for long – soon afterwards, he died playing tennis. His second wife gave birth to his only son a few months later – just in time, right? But Louis’s posthumous heir died five days later. Now the French throne passed to the late King Philip’s middle son, Philip V. But it didn’t pass to him without a fight: poor dead Louis had an elder daughter, Joan, who claimed the throne for herself. All across France, legal scholars grappled with the question: could a woman inherit the throne?
 
After the scandal of the two princesses and their infidelity, legal scholars felt confident in their answer: no, the throne could never pass through the female line. If the heir to the French throne’s wife could cheat on him, the way Louis’s wife seemed to have done, there was no way of knowing whether her children were really his. It’s an interesting counterfactual: would the French have allowed the throne to pass through the female line if it weren’t for that specific scandal happening at that specific moment? Who knows. Philip V inherited the throne over his niece, but once again, his reign would not last for very long. Only six years later, Philip died from dysentery and the throne passed to the youngest son, Charles IV. Like Louis, Charles’s wife was locked up in a tower during his reign, and he made no moves to let her out. Instead, he annulled their marriage and sent her into a nunnery, after which point he remarried a woman who promptly died giving birth to a child. By the end of his reign, Charles had only one living child – but whoops! It was a daughter. The same legal decision which had given the throne to Charles’s older brother now prevented the throne from passing to Charles’s daughter. Which brings us back to the year 1328. In the span of only a few years, the French throne had gone from ‘totally secure and stable for generations’ to a game of capture the flag, and France’s old nemesis, England, was ready to play.
 
—
 
Back across the Channel, good old Isabella had been getting into mischief once again. Not content with ratting out her sisters-in-law, apparently, Isabella returned home intent on destroying her husband. Joining forces with her lover, Isabella encouraged her son, Edward, to take up arms against his father. The plan worked, and Edward III assumed the English throne in 1327, just in time to see his rival across the Channel kick the bucket. With Charles’s daughter unable to inherit the throne, the French crown would instead pass to Charles’s male cousin, Philip the Fortunate. Young Edward saw his chance: “Okay,” he told European nobility, “of course a woman can’t inherit a throne. Obviously. Duh. That would be ridiculous. But what if – go with me here – what if a man could inherit the throne through a woman? You know, come to think of it, I really think I should be the king of France.” And with that, the Hundred Years’ War was born.
 
Without getting into the nitty gritty of the Hundred Years War, because even in quarantine, none of us really have that kind of time, here’s what matters most for our story today: the Hundred Years War is always portrayed as a war between the French and the English, but who, exactly, is that referring to? The English kings were descended from French nobility and held a bunch of territory across the Channel. The land we now call “France” was then composed of a bunch of different duchies, only some of whom considered themselves “French” in any sense of the word. The battle lines weren’t clearly drawn, and over the next hundred years they often shifted one way and then another. And there’s no better example of these shifting loyalties than the subject of this week’s story, Jeanne de Clisson.
 
—
 
Jeanne de Clisson was born Jeanne de Belleville, in a castle on the coast of Brittany. For centuries, England and France fought over who got to claim Brittany. As the name implies, the British had a heavy influence in the region. The Breton language, derived from Celtic tongues, has more in common with Gaelic than French. The lords of Brittany were the first to help William the Conqueror invade England, and were rewarded with territories there. But Brittany was across the Channel from England, she shared a border with France, and her people were divided in their loyalties. In truth, if you asked most residents of Brittany whether they felt they were English or French, most of them would tell you, “I’m Breton.” Young Jeanne was no different. Jeanne’s parents married her off to a local nobleman at the age of 12. She gave birth to two children by the age of 15 before her husband died. Suddenly, Jeanne was the hottest widow in town.
 
Two years later, just as King Charles was kicking the bucket, Jeanne married Guy de Penthievre. It was a hell of a match – he was the second son of the duke of Brittany himself. Right from the start, Guy’s family complained that Jeanne was a gold digger, out to steal his titles and fortune. If you’re wondering “isn’t that the point of rich people marrying one another” the truth is, I don’t get it either, but Guy’s family carried the day. After a few years, Jeanne’s marriage was annulled. Guy’s family would really regret this move later on. Jeanne, meanwhile, was the hottest widow in town again.
 
She was exceedingly eligible: a rich teenager, bestowed with valuable property from her late husband’s estate, demonstrably fertile with years of childbearing ahead of her, it’s a surprise she managed to squeeze in any more single living before she married again. This time, Jeanne married Olivier de Clisson, another very rich member of the local Breton nobility. Jeanne and Olivier seemed well-suited to one another. They were the same age, they’d both been married before, they both owned lots of property, and by all accounts they appear to have genuinely loved each other. Together, Jeanne and Olivier had five more children, and things seemed to be going pretty well – until 1341, when Jeanne and Olivier found themselves embroiled in the biggest battle to hit Brittany in centuries. 
 
The duke of Brittany, Jeanne’s ex-father-in-law, had three sons with his first wife, including Guy de Penthievre. Then, after his first wife died, the duke remarried and went on to have one more son with his new wife. The duke’s sons from his first wife hated their stepmother, and they hated their half-brother even more. But as the saying goes, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” By 1341, all three of the duke’s sons from his first marriage were dead, including Guy. As the French scholars had insisted only a few years earlier, French titles had to pass from man to man, right? That meant the dukedom of Brittany was set to pass into the hands of the dreaded fourth son, John de Monfort. This was a real problem. Not only did the local families hate John de Montfort, the French king, Philip the Fortunate, did too. John de Montfort was considered a sneaky, dubious fellow, and England supported his claim to the throne. Who wants to support the guy that England is rooting for? Then, just as John was getting ready to assume control of Brittany, a new challenger appeared: Guy de Penthievre’s daughter, Jeanne.
 
(If you’re subscribed to my newsletter, you probably saw my recent issue about how everyone in France is named one of four names. Since this is going to be a confusing episode otherwise, I will now refer to Guy de Penthievre’s daughter as L’il Jeanne.)
 
This is where things got wild. What should have been a regional dispute turned into an international proxy war, with England and France both wanting their guy in charge of Brittany, both because it was territorially useful and because it would make their enemy just so mad. In order to thwart England’s candidate for the dukedom of Brittany, L’il Jeanne used England’s own argument against them. “Following the same logic of your king, Edward III, the duchy should not go to John de Montfort,” L’il Jeanne said. “If a title can pass through a woman, the way Edward III says it can, then the rightful heir isn’t the duke’s weird fourth son that nobody likes, it’s me, the daughter of the duke’s second son, and my husband. Charles de Blois.”
 
Then, before John de Montfort could so much as put down a deposit on an event planner for his succession, L’il Jeanne and her husband claimed the duchy of Brittany for themselves. Truly honoring the spirit of “fake it til you make it” L’il Jeanne and her husband simply moved in to the capital of Brittany and said “Okay, we’re in charge now.” and then dared anybody else to call their bluff. It was like the Hundred Year’s War on a teensy tiny scale: everybody, pick your side.
 
The whole thing was insane and topsy turvy. If you supported the English king’s claim to the French throne, following his logic, you couldn’t support his choice for the Breton dukedom. If you supported the French king’s claim to the French throne, following his logic, you couldn’t support his choice for the Breton dukedom. The same question that had been raised a few years ago was raised again, but now everybody who had answered one way had to answer the opposite way. Could a woman pass a title on to her son or her husband? or did everything have to pass through a man? Darn those pesky women, with their pesky wombs, making everything complicated!
 
For Jeanne and Olivier de Clisson, the choice was simple. They supported the French king over the English king. Supporting the French king meant you had to accept his argument that the crown couldn’t pass through a woman. But supporting the French king’s choice for duke of Brittany meant you had to accept his argument that a title could pass through a woman. No wonder this stupid war lasted for a hundred years. If you’re confused, don’t worry, everyone back then was confused too. Jeanne and Olivier de Clisson supported L’il Jeanne, not only out of solidarity with other women named Jeanne, and not only because Jeanne de Clisson used to be married to L’il Jeanne’s dad. They pledged loyalty to L’il Jeanne’s husband, Charles de Blois. Within a few years, their loyalty would be put to the test: King Edward III was coming to town.
 
After Charles de Blois and Jean de Montfort both claimed the territory of Brittany for themselves, the French King Philip VI summoned everyone to Paris for a big formal proceeding. “We’re going to sort this out, and I, the king of France, along with my official tribunal, will issue a ruling once and for all.” John de Montfort knew the score. His rival, L’il Jeanne’s husband, was King Philip’s nephew. There was no way this tribunal would work out in his favor, so John de Montfort skipped town, captured the capital of Brittany and invited the nobility to come pay tribute to him, their new leader. Unfortunately for John, all of the Breton nobility knew which side their bread was buttered on and stayed home. Fine, John de Montfort said, time for a publicity tour. One of the first cities in Brittany to give John de Montfort its support was Vannes, a decision they’d probably come to regret. Before long, Charles de Blois was knocking on the city gates. “Oh, I wouldn’t bother asking your neighbors to help you out,” he informed the city officials. “I’ve burned all your neighbors to the ground.” The governor of Vannes bravely ran away, escaping to a nearby castle. While the governor met up with John de Montfort’s army and plotted a way to break back inside his own home, Charles de Blois’s men took control of Vannes. Chief among his military leaders was none other than Olivier de Clisson. Back and forth and back and forth, Vannes passed from English hands into French hands into English hands into French hands. In one particularly spectacular moment, John de Montfort’s own wife, who is, if you can believe this, also named Jeanne, led her very own army to besiege the city gates – successfully, I might add. In December 1342, Olivier de Clisson stood in charge of the city of Vannes, guarding it on behalf of Charles de Blois. One night, the English attacked, captured Olivier, threw him in prison, and took back the city of Vannes for themselves. But all of a sudden, the English ..just…released Olivier back to Charles de Blois in exchange for a small ransom and the release of one of their own men, just some English guy. It didn’t make any sense. Olivier de Clisson was an important guy! He was the military general leading this army! Why should the English give up such a valuable prisoner for so little? Charles de Blois smelled a traitor. Charles de Blois consulted with his ally, uncle King Philip, to ask for advice. Could Olivier be trusted? Was he a spy? What should I do?
 
In January 1343, England and France signed a truce. Spoiler alert: it’s called the Hundred Year’s War, don’t get too excited. That month, Olivier and fifteen other local noblemen from Brittany received invitations to a tournament. When they arrived, the men found themselves surrounded by armed guards, and were taken prisoner by the French King Philip himself. Transported to Paris, Olivier and his fellow noblemen sat through an absurd show trial, which didn’t take long to reach a shocking conclusion. On August 2nd, Olivier de Clisson, lord of Brittany, knight, presumed defender of the king, received a conviction for treason. As the record states: “And there, on a scaffold, had his head cut off. And then from there his corpse was drawn to the gibbet of Paris and there hanged on the highest level; and his head was sent to Nantes in Brittany to be put on a lance over the Sauve-tout gate as a warning to others.”
 
Now, if you’re a king struggling to maintain a grasp over your nation’s loosely held territories and duchies, the idea is to appease your powerful lords, not behead them. Edward III knew this well – his predecessor King John had been forced to sign the Magna Carta nearly 150 years earlier. King Philip needed his lords and dukes, they didn’t necessarily need him. If England and France were fighting for Brittany’s loyalty, executing the locals was a hell of a PR move. Even in 1343, you had to give a decent trial to a lord. You couldn’t decapitate a lord. You couldn’t stick the head of a lord on a pike for the crows. And for that matter, who was the king of France to behead a nobleman of Brittany? They could support who they wanted! Brittany isn’t France! Olivier de Clisson was truly the Ned Stark of his day. In one fell swoop, King Philip – and by extension, Charles de Blois, made himself a whole bunch of enemies. None of them would exact such a merciless revenge as Olivier’s wife, the furious, newly widowed Jeanne de Clisson.
 
 
That summer, Jeanne de Clisson took her two sons, Olivier and Guillaume, on a family road trip from hell: a trip to Nantes, to see their father’s head on a spike. That endless drive with your parents to the Grand Canyon is probably looking a lot better in hindsight. Jeanne, Olivier Jr. and Guillaume stared at Olivier Senior’s deteriorating head, letting the rage flow through them, building the kind of grudge that lasts a lifetime. Screw Charles de Blois. And screw the king of France. Jeanne vowed revenge against her late husband’s enemies, and to get it, she was willing to do anything – even align herself with her natural foe: the English.
 
Returning home, Jeanne de Clisson found herself declared a traitor, and her estate stripped almost bare. Not content with claiming her husband’s life, the king of France claimed his property, too – he’d need those estates to pay for his endless war. Oh yeah, that so-called truce with the English? It was already over. Jeanne was wealthy in her own right, however, and she sold her jewelry and fine furnishings for cold hard cash. Better yet, the English king, Edward III, recognized a powerful potential ally, and offered the widow the income from England’s own property in Brittany. First, Jeanne used the cash to raise an army. She’d take her battles offshore eventually, but first she’d make a hell of an impression on land.
 
Whether attracted by Jeanne’s cash or out of loyalty to Breton independence against the French king, Jeanne’s army swelled with troops. Before long, Jeanne marched down the coast to the castle of Galois de la Heuse. Galois was an old family friend, and he’d fought alongside Olivier on behalf of Charles de Blois. We don’t know why Jeanne singled him out for revenge, all we know is that Galois didn’t suspect a thing. Galois opened the gates to Jeanne and her men, who promptly slaughtered everyone inside. Well, almost everyone: Jeanne deliberately spared one person as a witness. “Tell them Jeanne de Clisson sent you.” With that, Jeanne promptly ransacked the castle for all its valuables, sold them, and used the funds to buy three warships. Turning her heels on her coastal carnage, Jeanne boarded her new ships and set sail, launching a career in piracy which extended for 14 years.
 
 
For French sailors, it was like something out of a nightmare, the stuff of tall tales and folklore: a foggy night, a calm sea, and suddenly, the Black Fleet. These were no English sailors, these ships sailed no English flag. Jeanne painted her ships black with pitch, and dyed her sails blood red. Jeanne led the way on her flagship, named “My Revenge”. The Black Fleet sailed up and down the French coast, sowing terror and revenge, offering no mercy, leaving almost no survivors. Again and again, a lone man or woman would turn up at a tavern, covered in blood, speaking of a massacre, whispering a name: The Lioness of Brittany. 
 
Sailing with her sons, the Tragic Widow, as she came to be known in Paris, sailed from the Bay of Biscay to the ports of Flanders, sinking any ship that crossed her path. Others called her “the bloody lioness” after her shield, featuring the sigil of the house of Clisson. Rumors swirled about her bloodthirsty nature. In some of the tales, Jeanne and her children personally oversaw the execution of the captured crews. In other tales, Jeanne swung the axe herself. As one scholar puts it, “the only thing certain was that every day the number of ships that did not reach their destination increased.” Jeanne’s ferocity turned in particular towards any captured French nobility. Their noble bloodlines were supposed to protect them from butchery – but so was Olivier’s, and his head had ended up on a spike. One after another, Jeanne delighted in murdering gentlemen, especially, the rumor went, those gentlemen unfortunate enough to be named Philip.
 
On December 1, 1343, King Philip had had enough. That day, French parliament formally declared open season on the Bloody Lioness. The French navy gave her their full attention. Still, it would be years before they finally tracked it down. In 1346, long after Parliament’s declaration, English and French forces clashed at the Battle of Crecy. Who arrived to provision English troops with fresh supplies but Jeanne de Clisson and her Black Fleet? Once again, she eluded capture. But finally, some time around 1348, the French Navy caught up with the Black Fleet at last.
 
Long into the night, the Black fleet fought back. Holding out on My Revenge, Jeanne refused to give up until almost all of her pirate fleet was dead. Finally, the French sailors boarded the flagship, making their way to the captain’s cabin. But a lioness, like all cats, has nine lives. Jeanne de Clisson had disappeared.
 
While the French fleet was making its way through the ship’s interior, Jeanne, her sons, and a crew of six pirates had escaped on a tiny boat, heading out into the open English Channel. For six days, the boat drifted through freezing water as the passengers edged closer to death. They had no food. They had no water. Their wet clothes froze in the winter air. Finally, at some point in their desperate escape, Jeanne’s youngest son Guillaume died. After seven days adrift, the crew finally landed. To their amazement, they’d washed ashore on a friendly stretch of the Breton coast, where they found supporters of John de Montfort to supply them with food, water, warm clothes and a decent burial for poor little Guillaume. But they couldn’t stay for long – Charles de Blois’s forces were patrolling the coast, so Jeanne and her remaining son Olivier Junior boarded another ship and retreated to England. Perhaps the French navy would have pursued her, but all of a sudden, they found themselves terribly distracted. Jeanne de Clisson was no longer the deadliest force to arrive in a port. The Black Death had come to town.
 
If the French thought Jeanne de Clisson was bloodthirsty, she was nothing compared to the bubonic plague. While Jeanne and Olivier Jr. kept their heads down in England, France shuddered through an incomprehensible wave of death. England lost 25% of her population, but that was a blessing compared to the tragedy across the Channel: one half of the French population succumbed to the Black Death.
 
By 1350, Olivier’s executioner, King Philip VI, was dead. Jeanne had vowed revenge against France, and now half of France was dead. Perhaps she finally felt her oath was fulfilled. Whatever the case, in 1356, Jeanne de Clisson married one last time to an English military leader named Walter Bentley. Jeanne sent her son, Olivier Jr, to live at the court of King Edward III. Here, Olivier Jr made friends with a pivotal figure in the War of Breton Succession: John de Montfort Jr. The son of a ruthless lady pirate and the son of a woman who had strapped armor on herself and led an army into battle probably had a lot to talk about, and they became friends. Meanwhile, Jeanne de Clisson and her new husband returned to Brittany at long last. They settled in the castle of Hennebont (HENN-BON), the very same castle where John de Montfort Jr’s mother had led her famous charge. For an ex-lady pirate shopping for real estate, I guess you can’t beat those vibes. After a few years together, Jeanne de Clisson finally died in 1359. She’d outlived her first husband, her kind of second husband, her third husband, her third husband’s murderer, her youngest son and half of France. Most pirates didn’t make it to sixty. But most pirates weren’t The Lioness of Brittany.
 
French historians liked to refer to this time period as “The War of the Three Jeannes”: Jeanne de Montfort, leading an army into battle on behalf of her husband and then her son; Jeanne de Penthievres, leading a rallying cry on behalf of her husband, Charles de Blois, and Jeanne de Clisson, terror of the high seas. These three women are notable not only for their exploits, but for the way those exploits are remembered. At the time these three women were born, baby girls faced a thrilling set of life choices: you can die young, you can marry and die in childbirth, you can join a nunnery, or, best case scenario, you can marry and have a bunch of kids and somehow survive their birth and maybe also a plague. These three women were all, shall we say, bold. They shattered the expectations – and sometimes the legs – of French society. But it turns out, the French loved them for it. Jeanne de Montfort became so iconic, she may have inspired most of the legends surrounding yet another woman named Jeanne (oh my god, France, can’t you have any female iconoclasts named, like, Violette?). Jeanne d’Arc and Jeanne de Monfort share a LOT of overlapping mythology. It’s hard to pick apart the influences. Jeanne de Penthievres ultimately lost, her husband Charles de Blois did not become the Duke of Brittany, but hey, she ended up a Countess. Not too shabby. And of course, Jeanne de Clisson managed to go on a murderous rampage across the high seas, living the pirate’s life for a decade and a half, and then, somehow, managed to live out a peaceful retirement and die of natural causes. As time went by, Jeanne’s legendary exploits faded from memory. But Jeanne had something special, something that almost none of the recent kings of France or dukes of Brittany had had: a living heir. His name was Olivier de Clisson. One day, he would be known as…”The Butcher.”
 
Thanks for listening to The Land of Desire! I’m your host, Diana, and I’m going to go turn on all of the lights and watch Practical Magic and count down the days until it’s culturally acceptable to start putting up my Christmas tree. For those of you in the United States, and frankly, those of you who aren’t, well done on taking a little time away from the news. It’s hard! Don’t doomscroll! Instead, check your inboxes for the new, free issue of the Land of Desire newsletter, with all kinds of soothing distractions to carry us through. You can sign up for the newsletter at thelandofdesire.substack.com. Until next time, au revoir!

Sources:

  • Vázquez, Germán. Mujeres Piratas. Spain, Editorial Edaf, S.L., 2004.
  • Pirate Women: The Princesses, Prostitutes and Privateers Who Ruled the Seven Seas, Laura Sook Duncombe
  • Visser, Nils, and Willeke Snijder. “The Flame of Britanny: Jeanne De Flandres.” Medieval Warfare, vol. 4, no. 2, 2014, pp. 33–38. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/48578335. Accessed 29 Oct. 2020.
  • Petot, Pierre. “Le Mariage Des Vassales.” Revue Historique De Droit Français Et Étranger (1922-), vol. 56, no. 1, 1978, pp. 29–47. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43847859. Accessed 29 Oct. 2020.
  • Chronicles, Jean Froissart
  • Jones, Michael C. E.. Ducal Brittany, 1364-1399: relations with England and France during the reign of Duke John IV.. London, Oxford U.P., 1970.
  • Woman: Women of mediœval France, by P. Butler. United States, subscribers only, G. Barrie & Sons, 1908.
  • Vencel, Wendy, “Women at the Helm: Rewriting Maritime History through Female Pirate Identity and Agency” (2018). Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection. 452.
    https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/ugtheses/452
  • Women Pirates and the Politics of the Jolly Roger, ed. Ulrike Klausmann, Gabriel Kuhn & Marion Meinzerin, trans. Nicolas Levis, Black Rose Books, 1997
  • A History of Piracy, Robert de la Croix, trans. Michael Ross, Manor Books, New York, 1978

Subscribe to the newsletter

That’s right – the Land of Desire newsletter is BACK. The revamped newsletter comes in two flavors: free and paid. Free subscribers receive one newsletter per quarter; paid subscribers receive at last one newsletter per month. Subscribe to the newsletter here.

Support the Show

There are so many ways to support the show! First and foremost, sign up for a paid subscription to The Land of Desire newsletter or contribute via Patreon. If you’re a paid subscriber, chime in on our Substack discussion threads whenever a new newsletter is sent out! 

But that’s not all: you’re always welcome and strongly encouraged to ask questions on the show’s Facebook page or through Twitter! And of course, you can contact me directly here. Thank you so much for listening to the show. Until next time, au revoir!

Join the Discussion